The Christian religion plays a key role in both Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood and Richard Wright's Black Boy. Despite the authors' ideological differences, Wright's childhood and O'Connor's protagonist, Hazel Motes, share common goals: understanding and overcoming the traumatic religious experiences forced upon them during their upbringing and, ultimately ultimately achieve personal identity and peace. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The ideologies and cultural contexts of the two texts contrast sharply, but they speak to each other in several meaningful ways. O'Connor was an outspoken evangelist. Robert Drake explains: “Her vision of man in this world was decidedly Christian: she saw all life in Christian terms; she thought the gospels were really true; and she accepted the historical teachings of the Church” (184). In his failed attempt to flee Christ, Haze reveals to the reader the necessity of Christian redemption. In his author's note for the second edition, O'Connor makes his intentions clear: Rebelling throughout his childhood and young adulthood against his grandmother's religion, Haze spends his life fleeing from the Jesus whom his grandfather described as a fearful, "soul-hungry" being who would "pursue him over the waters of sin" and "keep him always in his arms". the end” (16). As a result, Haze remained disturbed by the image of Jesus "moving from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild, ragged figure beckoning him to turn and walk away into the dark where he would not was unsure of his position, where he could walk on water without knowing it, then suddenly know it and drown” (18). The only lingering effect of his grandfather's sermons seems to be an intense feeling of fear of Jesus - and a conception of him as an evil, menacing being from whom Haze must escape. Disillusioned with the religious views imposed on them, Wright and Haze seek other forms of salvation and escape elsewhere. Robert Butler argues that Black Boy evokes two intertwined stories: "an outer narrative documenting the injustices and brutalities of the deterministic social environment that ensnares Wright in both the South and the North, and an inner narrative that dramatizes his transcendence from that environment with its own spirituality. energy and free will. In Black Boy, the reader follows the development of Wright's consciousness and conception of Wright from young boy to young adult. At the same time, Wright provides a cultural framework for the oppressive atmosphere in which he lived. Wright's childhood in the South represents the "hell" of American racism. He is constantly hungry, suffers frequent physical abuse from family members, and is constantly uprooted and moved from house to house. Yet Wright ultimately experiences prosperity and upward mobility, almost impossible achievements for a Southern black. It is Wright's inner escape that allows him to transcend his surroundings through the harnessing of his own supernatural forces and self-determination. This duality of outer and inner narratives is clear during Wright's early childhood in his approach to the strict practice of Seventh-day Adventism. , which had been imposed on him. While he explicitly denounces his grandmother's religion, resents her strict authoritarian control over him, and claims not to believe, Wright is internally fascinated by religion in many ways. At the most basic level, Wright is comforted by assurances of spiritual healingof religion, which gave him hope that his mother could recover from her illness. More importantly, the sermons serve to awaken and heighten Wright's keen sense of imagination which greatly influences his writings. Thoughts and feelings are transparent and presented in an unmistakable and manifest manner. Wright makes it clear to the reader that the physical and emotional suffering he endured early in his life had already had the effect of establishing in him a firm outlook on life that could not be penetrated or affected by faith:say- you why, if you think that it is because of Jesus Christ crucified, you are wrong” (51). Haze reaffirms his assertion that all humanity is pure and in no need of redemption, nor does humanity need Christ's help for its salvation, when he repeatedly says to the zoo waitress: “I AM clean” (87). He repeats the mantra to the owl at the zoo to reinforce to himself that Christ does not exist. But his doubts about his cleanliness and his lack of help from Christ torment him, as evidenced by his reaction to road signs during one of his trips out of town. Haze sees a gray rock by the side of the road: “White letters on the rock read: Woe to the blasphemer and the whore! WILL HELL SWALLW YOU? (71). The message on the rock is particularly relevant to Haze because of his preaching for the Christless Church and his sexual involvement with Leora Watts. Haze's car stops and he is forced to look at two words at the bottom of the sign that say, in smaller letters, "Jesus Saves." Haze angrily states, “I don’t need to run from anything because I don’t believe in anything” (72). As he addresses these words to the interrogating truck driver, it is clear that Haze's words are, in fact, addressed to himself - and indicate that he is aware that he is, in fact, fleeing. , something: his acceptance of Jesus. As Wright transcends his surroundings, Haze also ends up achieving salvation when he finally gives in to Jesus, but not before looking for salvation in all the wrong places. Haze's connection to his car could be interpreted as deeply religious. Haze has unconditional confidence in the car's lasting functionality, despite its obvious mechanical failures. For Haze, the car is a source of refuge and escape. The car, however, did not prove to be a lasting source of salvation in that, as a material object, its final destruction was inevitable. It is only when Haze finally establishes his own faith in Jesus that he is at peace. This dramatic transformation was brought about by three key events (Caren 46). First, Haze violently destroys the mummy that Enoch gave birth to after seeing Sabbath cradling the doll like her own child. According to Caren, this outburst stemmed from a deep apprehension that motivated her harsh and violent response to the presence of the mummy: "Haze recognizes that she has indeed been presented with a new Jesus – a Jesus reduced to the size at which the Haze's disbelief I would cut him; a Jesus who is a continuing sign of our mortality, who lives in a mummified eternity only to proclaim the impossibility of resurrection” (45). The next significant event is Haze's murder of Solace Layfield, the prophet who imitates her for financial gain. Haze ceremoniously removes the fraudster's clothes then runs him over with her car. The murder had been announced earlier when a member of the crowd asked if he and Layfield, the impostor preacher, were twins. He responds, “If you don’t hunt him down and kill him, he will hunt you down and kill you” (168). Eventually, something clearly breaks in Haze when the patrolman pushes her car off the cliff, destroying it. before Hazecannot escape from Taulkinham. Suddenly, the entity that Haze had invested all of her faith and dependence in had simply disappeared. Haze returns to town and immediately blinds himself – perhaps to repent or to demonstrate his new faith in Jesus. Blindness brings him closer to Jesus to the extent that it erases all the distractions that would have hindered his faith. Additionally, he gains stronger spiritual insight, allowing him to understand that he should run toward, not away from (O'Connor's conception) the one true savior (Caron 50). Mrs. Flood, the owner, notices a significant change in Haze's behavior: "To her, the blind man seemed to see something. His face had a peculiar, driven look, as if he were moving toward something he could just make out in the distance” (218). Ironically, it is only after Haze blinds himself that he can truly see the path to salvation. Although Wright and Haze find comfort in very different sources, their paths to finding each other are similar. Both initially turn to a sort of organized religion – Haze attempts to organize his "Christless Church" and gain public support and buy-in. Wright also seeks solace as a member of an organized group by becoming an active participant and leader within the Communist Party. Impressed by their apparently progressive ideals on race, Wright said of the party's willingness to accept a black member: "How did these people, denying profit, denying home, and God, get over that hurdle that even the churches in America could not do? (321). Wright initially devotes all his energy to party activities until he discovers that the party is not as morally upright and open-minded as it initially appeared. Wright was excluded from the party and found that it was more successful in operating independently and developing its own writings and ideologies separately from the organized group. Similarly, Haze is unable to discover his ideals within an organized group. He is unable to maintain support for his religious movement due to fraudulent competition from the Hoover Shoats. Ultimately, like Wright, Haze discovers that there is no organized church that can show him the path to salvation - it is something he must discover for himself, independent of any organized group. This is perhaps the most significant difference in religious ideologies. O'Connor and Wright lie in their opposing perceptions of the role of religion within society. In Black Boy, Wright criticizes the excessive proliferation of Christianity among Southern blacks, positing that religion provides them with "fantasies that distract them from solving the political and social problems of the real world" (Butler). Additionally, Christianity promises salvation in the afterlife for the faithful, leading some to passively endure suffering in this life under the assumption that they will be rewarded in the future, rather than taking positive steps to remedy their situation (Caron). O'Connor, on the other hand, subtly advocates in Wise Blood a reacceptance of traditional Christian values ​​in a decidedly "post-Christian" world (Drake 184). Its protagonist, and those he interacts with, fail to find true salvation in such modern sources as sex or material goods – Haze is only at peace when he finally devotes himself to Jesus. While racial inequality is the central issue in Wright's narrative and the theme of religion is merely tangential, O'Connor's Wise Blood focuses entirely on religion and racial inequality is never even mentioned . Timothy Caren criticizes this omission, which he identifies as evocative..